After several months of formalizing paperwork and organizational structure, the Cascadia Association Football Federation (CAFF) has been approved as a provisional member of the Nouvelle Fédération-Board, or NF-Board for short. The organization is a soccer board unaffiliated with, but meant to complement FIFA, comprised of teams that represent unrecognized nations, autonomous regions, states, minorities, stateless peoples, and micronations.

Acceptance as a provisional member means that Cascadia is now eligible to participate in the VIVA world cup. The VIVA world cup is a competition that is held every 2 years and is organized by the NF Board. The next VIVA world cup is scheduled for 2014 with the host yet to be determined.

The next step then for CAFF, is to begin putting together a coaching staff and contacting eligible players to participate in a Non-FIFA aligned Cascadia national team. Alexi Lalas, ESPN announcer and former USMNT, has mentioned he may be interested in head coach, responding via twitter that he ‘would be honored’ to be offered the position.

Originally started in late August of 2012, the idea has gained a wide degree of attention. Not even a year later, after having their first general meeting and formalizing organizational positions on January 26th, CAFF has already received friendly invitations from several NF Board associated federations including Quebec, Northern Cyprus, Raetia, Sealand (because why not?), Occitania and several others.

Though eligibility for a Cascadian national team has not yet been determined, CAFF has been in close talks with several players, including some professional, and is tracking more than 100 players who might be interested. Because it is not FIFA-aligned, the team itself will likely be made up of amateur, semi-pro and professional players, and does not interfere with their play-ability in other matches. Contact has also been made with the Quebec association who have already agreed to home and away meetings and the nascent beginnings of a North America and Arctic federation being set up alongside Greenland and, in the future, New Brunswick. The clamour for a Cascadian team has come too quickly for some invitations though, including taking part in a tournament in England this summer, but the association are hoping to have a side playing matches by the end of the year.

CAFF will likely be having another general meeting in the upcoming months, and if you are interested in becoming involved, you can send them an email directly to cascadiafootball@gmail.com, follow them on Twitter @CascadiaSoccer or on facebook here. You can view the original NF-Board release announcing CAFF’s application here. Below, we’ve also included an alphabetical list for potential Cascadian players, along with position and current club. If you have suggestions or see an error, please feel free to let us know in the comments, and we’ll try our best to get it corrected as soon as possible:

Brandon Letsinger is the CascadiaNow! Founder, Cascadia Association Football Federation (CAFF) board member, and Cascadia Underground director. He is an open source and independent media advocate, bioregionalist, movement builder and dusty, sneezy used book proprietor of Horizon Books on Capitol Hill in Seattle WA.

Correct. Not only that but KickStarter explicitly told us they do not do sports so we went to IndieGogo for our first campaign which funded our application process.
Look for another fundraising campaign in the near future as the team begins to take shape.

Sorry to read about your membership in NF-Board, hope it goes well. In any matters, CAFF are welcome to apply for membership to CIFA – the biggest global organization for teams outside FIFA and in that way participate in CIFA World Championship…
With best regards.

Thank you for the invitation to join CIFA.
You should know we are considering all options for regular games in non-FIFA play and are open to playing teams from CIFA if allowed under N.F.-Board and CIFA rules.

Right now our number one priority is moving to the next phase where we play our first friendly, likely vs Quebec. As you well know Sascha Duerkop represented us at the February N.F.-Board Annual General meeting in Munich. We told him that if membership in more than one non-FIFA organization is possible under N.F.-Board regulations then we would perhaps be open to joining CIFA at some point in the future but we are careful not to take on too much at this crucial stage in the development of out FA and team.

What's most important to us as an FA and to our supporters is seeing a team take the pitch as soon as possible and that is where 90% of our effort has to be right now. As you very well know the fundraising and administrative challenges a new non-FIFA FA can face we are sure you understand our non-committal position at his point in our development.

I wish you and CIFA all the best and we will be following news about your organization closely.

Branded is correct. Kickstarter specifically told us they do not do sports. Indiegogo however does and we successfully used Indiegogo to raise funds for our application fee and to send our European representative to the N.F.-Board general meeting in Munich in February.
Stay tuned, we’re going to open up a big general fundraising campaign in the near future.

Thank´s Leonard! I fullly understand your situation. CIFA have no rules to "lock you in" to only one organization – we´re not afraid. Instead we salute if you´re member of several organizations – that helps you to reach a bigger market, more games, financing and other kind of help. We will keep you updated about the CIFA progress and if you want any help – please ask and we´ll see in what we can help you grow…
With friendly regards